


Orchard in the Snow

by building_a_desert



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, M/M, Parent/Child Incest, Rating will change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-22 23:41:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2525972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/building_a_desert/pseuds/building_a_desert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While most people were born with the name of their one-to-be printed boldly on the back of their hand, others had been known to grow into it. Some never formed at all. Carl, unfortunately, found himself blessed with a vaguely outlined smudge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So here's myyyy attempt at a soulmate au and like woahhhdude I have no idea what I'm doing. But how much more codependent can they get than when their names are _literally_ labeling the other? Wulllll, maybe a/b/o but feverbegantospread over on tumbler's got that one covered ;3
> 
>  
> 
> This is exposition, btw. Sorry for the short length and any errors too, as this is unbeta'd. Hope you guys like it~<3

  It began as a blemish.

  Truthfully, it wasn't that unheard of. While most people were born with the name of their one-to-be printed boldly on the back of their hand, others had been known to grow into it. Some never formed at all.

  Carl, unfortunately, was blessed with a vaguely outlined smudge. He didn't have a memory without it, the lopsided mark stamped just below the surface of his skin. At some point he had formed the habit of running his fingertips over it, marveling at the notion of someone out there just for _him_.

  As he grew older however, that perspective fell victim to change.

 _"Now I don't want you thinking you aren't allowed to fall in love with whoever you want, baby,"_ Lori's voice echoed throughout his head, _"No name on your hand is going to say otherwise."_

  She wasn't wrong to tell him this; as a parent, it proved to be a crucial lesson for her child. But perhaps her own biases came through a little too loudly. Lori never formed a mark, for that matter neither did Rick. And while it wasn't uncommon for a non-imprinted couple to have a perfectly happy life, it did have the potential to be detrimental to an imprinted child.

  Where Lori could almost be described as, though Carl hesitated to think it, self-righteous in her views of soulmates and imprinting, Rick seemed perhaps indifferent, if not a bit conflicted. The boy had at first assumed that, like his mother, Rick might hold some resentment for never having imprinted. With time, it became clear, at least to him, that the man's thoughts towards the subject ran far deeper.

  Whenever Carl was alone with his father, and he inquired about his mark and what it might mean, the man behaved as if a weight was lifted. No lingering pretense or judgements, just the mutual pursuit of affection and comfort. And though it made him feel guilty for reasons he couldn't begin to explain, Rick's hand running comfortingly through his hair followed by soothing, gravelly tones helped ease Carl's worries more than his mother's subjective advice ever did.

  He knew that ultimately, it _was_ his choice, that he was allowed to carve his own way. But in the solace of his own company, Carl continued to secretly covet his mark. He found himself obsessively studying it, in wait for the day when the ink would finally flow into the name that would mean _everything_ to him.

  When Rick fell into a coma, the blemish darkened to a deep outline. Carl himself fell into a deep depression.

  He wouldn't forget the feeling that engulfed his body that day. The boy barely remembered collapsing into his mother's arms, hardly noticed the heavy tears clouding his vision; he formed no memory of the ride to the hospital.

  He did remember the sight of his father lying in that awfully fluorescent room, however, could distinctly envision the various tubes and wires monitoring the man's vitals and, for all he knew, keeping him alive. It was a display that made his stomach fall and his heart get caught somewhere on the way up his throat.

  Carl recalled muffled voices. A buzzing filled his ears. Snippets of conversation not directed at him.

  Gunshot wound. Medically induced coma. Extreme loss of blood.

_Extreme loss of blood._

  In a dream-like trance, Carl was suddenly reminded of a lesson in school, how the assignment -- that dumb, _boring_ assignment -- required him to record the blood types of himself, classmates, and his closest relatives.

  Feeling as though a very real danger was closing in on him, Carl had begun begging, _pleading_ with Lori to let him give Rick his blood, to let him do anything he could to help. All that raced through the boy's head at the time were thoughts of his father and how he couldn't possibly survive without the man, the only person to understand him without a _word_ , who never made him feel worthless or burdensome, who always found time for him. Carl refused to leave Rick's bedside that night until Lori, wiping away tears of her own, promised that they would be back first thing the next morning.

  Going through the motions of school, hospital, and home rendered Carl a dilapidated mess. His G.P.A. plummeted, as did his social life. It proved remarkably difficult to focus on anything but the health and recovery of his father. It was like there was something in his brain barring all interference from things not pertaining to the man he owed his existence to. He _couldn't_ think of anything else.  

  It didn't matter that the rest of the world ended. When Atlanta was bombed, Carl's mind defaulted to "standby".

  He didn't possess much presence of mind for over two months, and let himself get led along and ardently protected while his life suddenly plummeted into the horror genre. Shane and Lori couldn't do much to nurture the psychological wellbeing of the boy. Any chance the woman might have gotten to discuss Rick with her son was almost always interrupted by a threat to their camp. Carl was quickly learning that the new world wasn't a place for sentimentality.

  It wasn't until a pair of sturdy arms enveloped him once again, lifting him off the ground and all but crushing him to his father's chest, that Carl regained a sense of self. To feel the shudders wracking the man's body, the very real tears soaking into his shirt while lips pressed desperately into his hair, were the propelling forces he needed. With Rick alive and impossibly, _miraculously_ back with him, Carl felt as if just a little more colour trickled into the world.

  Later in the tent, with his father hovering over his prone form with an adoring look in his eye, Carl experienced a deeply familiar but unnamed sensation within his chest. His heart throbbed uncomfortably, but it did nothing to diminish the smile shaping his lips as he gazed right back. Long, calloused fingers ran through his hair, and it seemed too long since he could remember being so at ease.

  The next morning, Carl's mark _burned._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy, second update within a week, not too bad eh? Not toooo much to say this chapter, only that it is set in ep. 3x6 "Hounded". Hopefully I made the time skip flow decently, and you can pro'lly expect more in the near future~ I can't do Grimescest with Carl still looking _quite_ so young (cuz standards, right)
> 
> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are mine. Hope you guys like iiit~ <3

The back of Carl's hand had long since gone numb. The boy frantically scrubbed a now freezing washcloth across his skin, hoping, _praying_ that the name etched plainly below his knuckles would just _come out._

A pained sound filled the room. The boy felt his legs threatening to give out as the hopelessness of the situation decided to finally make itself at home somewhere in his chest, close to his lungs; breathing had become something of a challenge.

Carl threw the rag into the basin and his hands grasped at its rim to balance himself. It was hard to recognize the eyes staring back at him from the mirror, bloodshot and so damn _scared._ He squeezed them shut and, as if to spite him, several more tears escaped down his cheeks. The teen's shoulders shook with barely restrained sobs.

It didn't feel possible that he could experience so _many_ emotions at once. Carl felt his mind racing with grief, sewn carefully by a thread of panic. Though it was only yesterday, it felt like a week since the prison had been sabotaged. That awful, blaring alarm that set everyone on edge, while several dozens of walkers were led into the the halls of their home. He could still remember the smell of too many rotting bodies in such a cramped space, all pursuing him, could still feel the instinctive _need_ to find somewhere safe for his mother going into labour -- 

Oh _god,_ his _mother._

The boy hunched forward again, more sobs wracking his small frame. At this point, the collective tally of shots fired in his short lifetime was irrelevant. It was all muscle memory by now. But Carl could not remember a time where it had taken _everything_ in him to pull the trigger, not like it had yesterday. The only thing he could think of was the overwhelming weight of responsibility that suddenly dropped on him, the knowledge of what needed to be done. Without that, he never would have put a bullet through Lori's head. 

Of course, this only added to the heavy burden of guilt currently accosting his mind.

_It just wasn't possible,_ his logic stressed, but any explanation other than the obvious had yet to present itself. What _had_ presented itself were a pair of words, a series of letters he'd come to know better than his own, staring pointedly up at him.

**_Richard Grimes_**

It was a messy scrawl, as if the man had penned it in himself. But it was permanent; the better part of an hour's worth of furious scrubbing had all but confirmed that. Carl hung his head, gaze tentatively finding his hand and holding out hope that he had at least _smudged_ the ink. But there it sat, behaving like it belonged there, like it had _always_ been there.

And that was it, wasn't it? With muted horror, Carl felt himself growing nauseous. It _had_ always been there. His father's name laying hidden just under the surface of his skin had done nothing but string him along, giving him something to cling to. In hindsight, it seemed more like some sort of joke, of which _he_ ended up being the punchline.

The boy wiped a shaky hand across his face. There was no way it could be a coincidence, he knew, not in the wake of his mother's death. The significance didn't escape him - how _could_ it? - but it did nothing to appease the impending cloud of self-loathing. The timing was important, was everything, because to him it clearly spelled out his predestined role as a _substitute._

Carl yanked both sleeves down, making sure to keep the left one a little longer, and turned away from the sink. It was late morning, and he wondered, with a small, though slowly growing sense of resentment, whether his father had returned from the deeper bowels of the prison. The man hadn't turned up before he went to bed, and his cell stood, as of this morning, empty and untouched.

Spending the majority of last night in Cellblock C with his sister, Carl was allowed his immediate time of mourning to be curbed by the infant. Her gentle coos and imploring face transfixed everyone, temporarily blinding them to their very recent loss. 

After food had been obtained for her, however, Daryl's inquiry regarding a name had ignited an emotional turmoil in him. It prompted the boy to list the name of each female member of the group they had lost. But once he began, it was impossible to stop, and he couldn't help but throw a final, hesitant "Lori" out, if only to hear her name when no one else would say it. The gratitude he felt towards Daryl for relieving some of the stress following that, however, was insurmountable; "Li'l Asskicker" did have a nice ring to it. 

Sleep barely touched him last night. His sister, well fed and asleep in Hershel's cell, barely woke. Carl's mind had been far too restless, struggling to focus on the reality of just how much his life changed within the span of a few hours. It never got any easier. 

Eventually, he found rest, but the reprieve was short lived. Just this morning, Carl found himself awkakening early to a very warm sensation flowing down his left arm. Like a soothing current, it pulsed through his veins, culminating in the in the dip at the back of his wrist, before branching out toward his fingers. The teen wasn't sure he'd ever experienced something quite so pleasing. 

He remembered flexing the muscles in his hand, groaning slightly in appeasement before letting his eyes adjust to the light filtering into his cell. The ensuing skip of his heart and subsequent crashing of the world all around him was his brain's way of telling him that he needed to do something, _immediately._ Several moments of deliberation and uncertainty later had him donning a too-big flannel shirt and racing to the bathroom in a vain attempt to wash the incriminating brand away. 

And the bathroom, a place that had proven itself temporary sanctuary, was now under very real threat of being breached by the others. The slow movements heard from just outside clued Carl into the hour, that everyone was waking. A mounting anxiety gripped him, thoughts fluttering through his head, reminding him how he was alone in this, how _dire_ it now was to keep this a secret. And with no baby sister to distract him, his father's absence only added to his sense of powerlessness. The last he saw, the man had disappeared from where he himself emerged with Maggie and the baby. He didn't know what Rick thought he would accomplish, but his erratic behaviour left Carl with a bitter taste in his mouth. 

The looming thoughts pertaining to his father's _lack_ of a mark, however, filled him with dread, and the sense of becoming a very real burden uncoiled like a snake in his stomach. Nothing good could come from this, Carl knew, nothing but inconvenience and a dynamic impossible to work with. The best course of action would be to conceal his hand as surreptitiously as possible, by any and all means.

He exited the bathroom, keeping the brim of his hat low. The boy felt no desire to talk to anyone, save whoever was with the baby perhaps. He already knew the words of comfort, the painfully empathetic looks directed his way, had experienced it all before when his father was in the hospital. He didn't need pity, he needed normalcy.

\---- 

It felt worth noting how very much like a unit Carl felt with the others, particularly when their collective attention was captured at the sound of Rick's voice. After Maggie's affirmative as to their wellbeing, the man opened the gate serving as a barricade between them. And like a group of pack animals, they stayed alert to watch their leader enter the Cellblock. 

His father's eyes seemed to dart around, never focusing on any one person for long. But when the shaky, almost uncoordinated gaze met his, Carl found it was _him_ that it halted for. 

"What about you?"

Hershel's question diverted Rick's attention for a moment, but he was quick to lock eyes with his son again. Carl's heart hammered wildly, and discovered just how impossible it was to look away.

"Cleared out the boiler block." 

The words chilled Carl to the bone. 

He wasn't sure why the dots hadn't connected, why he didn't understand his father's ill planned venture into the lower levels. Nothing would cement reality without proof; the man had gone looking for the body of his dead wife.

Did that mean he had _seen?_ Had he found the remains of the woman he loved, left to lay in her own blood? Did he see what Carl had done, what he _had to do,_ for her face to be as unrecognizable as every other corpse in the Prison? 

Deep shame washed over him again, urging him to make himself as small as possible. The boy kept his left arm in his lap, sleeve pulled down to cover his lightly bandaged hand. He was aware of the implications of hiding what looked to be a wound and not telling anyone, but the teen's options were limited. His fingers clutched tightly at the cuff of his shirt, his subconscious' way of assuring him he was protected from prying eyes.

But his _father's_ eyes, they just wouldn't leave him alone. His thumb began digging into the fabric stretched over it, and he squirmed uncomfortably. The slowly mounting shame of keeping something so vital a secret conflicted with the way his hand pulsed warmly in sync alongside his heartbeat.

There was so much left unspoken, so much on the verge of coming out. The unwavering look Rick was giving him made Carl so _sure_ the man was anticipating a conversation, but no words were exchanged. The boy both desired and feared whatever it was his father wanted to tell him. He knew the man loved him, cared at least enough to check in, but the possibility of, no matter how small and uncharacteristic of Rick, being blamed for the death of his mother had Carl wishing the floor would swallow him up.

"How many were there?" 

Daryl's question seemed just another distraction to his father, and the flippant answer merely alarmed the boy. A dozen? Maybe _two?_ He couldn't grasp how Rick could behave to recklessly, so _selfishly._ A strong desperation gripped him, the knuckles of his left hand seizing up as if frozen in ice.

It just added insult to injury that the warm hand on his back, typically a source of great comfort, served only to make Carl's heart clench in pain.

"I have to get back. Just wanted to check on Carl."

His frown deepened. Why did Rick have to "get back"? Why wasn't he here to check on his own _daughter?_ A slow churning had begun in the teen's stomach, thoughts already stacked unfairly against his father, and he sensed the telltale stirrings of anger born from fear.

There had always been a lingering concern, perhaps shared by more members of the group than would admit, that Rick could hold some resentment for the baby. Aside from the few that knew, as Carl did, the deep interweaving layers concerning Shane and his parents, there still remained the sheer fact that the infant had survived while Lori didn't. 

He watched as Rick quickly went through the motions of First in Command, as the others chimed in to inform him of their plans of the day in reinstating the Prison as a habitable environment. He tuned them out, finding it difficult to focus on anything but the half-aware way his father communicated with everyone.

And as quickly as he appeared, Carl's father was gone. Hershel's attempts to call him back went ignored.

\----

"That was the hard part, you know, she was just gone. Erased. Nothing left of her. People said it was better that way."

Carl didn't reply, listening instead to Daryl's words. The man's soliloquy was strangely cathartic to hear. Some part of him had expected some of the others to ask what he was thinking and feeling, and it wasn't an unpleasant turnaround for the opposite to take place.

"I dunno," Daryl continued, leading the way with flashlight aloft, Carl following in his wake, "Just made it seem like it wasn't real, you know?" 

The boy let out a soft exhale. Nothing felt further from the truth.

"I shot my mom."

Daryl stopped, and somewhere behind them Oscar followed suit.

"She was out. Hadn't turned yet."

Daryl saw the aftermath, but Carl witnessed all that lead up to it. He watched his mother struggle with the unimaginable pain of childbirth, of _something_ going wrong, heard the sickening sounds of Maggie trying so, _so_ carefully to find the baby amidst all the gore. 

He looked on as his mother bled out, cried over her weakening body while she looked him in the eye and told him how _brave_ he was. 

From there, he wasn't given a choice. 

" _I_ ended it. It was real."

Breaking eye contact, and suddenly feeling very childish, Carl shifted his feet.

"Sorry about your mom."

"Sorry about _your's."_

\----

Sitting alone with nothing but the intent to wallow was anything but productive. Carl, unfortunately, wasn't quite sure what would be construed as productive. His bed sank under his weight, legs bending at the knee while he rested his back against the wall. Pulling his sleeve back, the boy peeled carefully at one corner of the large bandaid adhesed to the back of his hand.

The split second before the brand became visible, Carl really held onto the hope that maybe, just _maybe_ , the act of smothering his mark for a day would force it back under. He would still have to contend with hunger, cohabitation with the others, and any loss, recent or yet to come. But if he wasn't forced to deal with the very real truth of his _father_ acting as his predestined, unrequited soulmate, his life could be slightly more manageable.

His fingers traced the dark ink, his need to avoid anything to do with it seeming to only egg him on. He felt compelled to study the letters, memorize how the capital "G" arced sharply downwards, curling into the dip in his wrist. A shiver ran through his body, causing Carl to hurriedly smoothed the bandage down once more. 

After fully covering his hand, the teen noticed the small hole his thumb had worn into the cuff of his sleeve, no doubt his nervous scrunching of the fabric doing nothing to stop this. And though it was becoming increasingly harder to find shirts with no tears, Carl deliberately widened the gap, letting his thumb poke through. This allowed his sleeve to fully cover his hand, without having to worry about it riding up and risking exposure.

He got to his feet, wanting very much to hold or, at the very least, be near his baby sister. She was the only family who seemed to want anything to do with him, her eyes always seeming to light up whenever he came within sight. All that Rick seemed to look at him with was uncertainty, like the man had _some_ idea what he needed to say, but no clue how to go about it. 

Rounding the corner to the main area, however, Carl found himself greeted by a sight he hadn't expected. 

Rick stood beside Hershel, marveling at the infant as he held her delicately with both hands. The man looked unaware of everything around himself, his main focal point being the child in his arms. A look of adoration overcame his face, as if just remembering his responsibility for that helpless little bundle of life, and Rick gently brought his daughter close to his chest.

The boy looked on, love blossoming in his chest at the heartwarming scene, at the sense of _unity_ encompassing the room. A soft smile attached itself to Carl's lips, but it's sudden appearance surprised him, enough to the point that it began to wane. The now familiar thrumming in his hand didn't, however.

**Author's Note:**

> Lemme know what you think aaaand follow me at humdrum-star.tumblr.com


End file.
